From the article it sounds like she has some real issues with her mother. [Cheap shot. Dupuy’s article had issues with her mother’s fundamentalist dogmatism…just like Nail’s] It may be good therapy for her to vent in the column, however she submits NO scientific evidence of the evolution theory [The piece is about how creationism kept her ignorant of science; it’s not a scientific treatise]. The only item she mentioned was when she wrote, “There’s plenty of self-evident evidence (see: the flu virus). …”. A virus is not even a living organism. [And yet…they evolve!]

From the Answers in Genesis website (answersingenesis.org/articles/aid/v1/n1/has-it-evolved) [Uh-oh. Not a trustworthy source at all]: “So what should one say if asked, “Is the ‘bird flu’ evolving”? It could be said that the avian influenza genome is evolving only in the sense that it’s continually changing and modifying [Uh, yes? That’s evolution!], and not in the sense that it will someday be something other than an influenza virus [It will become a different kind of virus, with different properties. It will not become a chicken, nor does evolution predict that it will]. Yes, influenza viruses do possess a certain degree of variability; however, the amount of genetic information which a virus can carry is vastly limited[So? So’s the amount of information in your genome, John Nail — that we don’t have infinite genomes is not an argument against evolution], and so are the changes which can be made to its genome before it can no longer function[Again, limits are what we expect in the real world; show me a system with an absence of limitations on its behavior and maybe I’ll start believing in your god].”

“Scientists”[The only “scientists” who deserve scare quotes are the shabby charlatans that Nail cites] tell us the moon is 4.6 billion years old. If it were then the Apollo 11 astronauts should have stepped off into several feet of space dust instead of the inches they did. Based on the accumulation of dust (which is measured by “scientists”) the moon would be 7-10,000 year old [Oh, please. Seriously? The Moon Dust argument? Even Answers in Genesis, Nail’s favorite source, rejects that claim!].

The word dinosaur means “large lizard”[No, actually, it means “terrible lizard”] — Ms. Dupuy, we still have large lizards [So? “Dinosaur” is a specific name referring to a specific clade with specific features in their anatomy that are distinct from those of extant lizards—the argument from word roots is irrelevant to the biological reality. I could call John Nail an ass, but that doesn’t mean he’ll sprout long ears and a tail and start braying (oops, well, he is doing that last bit already)]. In fact, large lizards were small when they were young. Noah could have easily had immature “dinosaurs” on the Ark [He could have also packed in every species in the planet as gametes stored in liquid nitrogen, with the temperature maintained by giant refrigerators driven by a nuclear power plant. Your fantasy about what ‘coulda’ happened isn’t evidence of reality]. Natural Science museums do not show the rabbits, squirrels and other currently known animals whose bones were found with the dinosaur bones[Say what? Rabbits found in the Cretaceous would be amazing. Too bad they aren’t — John is just making shit up]. It would be to hard to explain why they were living together in the same times[Yes it would. But they haven’t.].

When I was in school in the 60s we learned about the cavemen: The Peking man, the Java man and others. When they were exposed as hoaxes, they were not removed from the textbooks [Because those are all examples of Homo erectus. They were not exposed as hoaxes, by any means — rather, many more fossil examples have been found].

I could list many scientific reasons that macro-evolution makes no sense but we believe what we want to believe[If they’re of the same quality as the reasons given so far, no need to bother]. As an ancient text says, “For the wisdom of this world is foolishness with God. For it is written, He taketh the wise in their own craftiness. And again, The Lord knoweth the thoughts of the wise, that they are vain.”[I think it was in the best interests of the authors of the Bible to claim that wisdom is foolishness, to make their foolishness look wise.]

I have taught[Fuck, no!] in a Christian school (St. Paul’s Lutheran)[Unsurprising] for the past fifteen years. We look at both sides of the argument[Liar. We can see already that he knows nothing of the science]. The government schools only look at one side so who is getting a “better” science education? [The kids in schools that actually teach the evidence, and how it was determined, and who are not getting prepackaged superstition in the guise of science] We are not afraid of the scientific discoveries[Because you will readily distort them to fit your agenda]. They prove the Bible true! [Seven day creation, zombies invading Jerusalem, genetics determined by striped sticks, self-serving ahistorical bullshit, all of that? Nope.] The Bible is not a bunch of “stories.”[Actually, it is largely the mythology of a tribe of pastoral, patriarchal jerks who successfully murdered and enslaved their way to a small niche in the Middle East, and then frantically invented a legendary triumphal history to prop up their egos when they were serially crushed by stronger tribes] It is a record of God moving in the history of mankind [Yeah, right, and Star Trek: The Next Generation is about an all-powerful psychopath named Q…but that doesn’t make it true]. We cannot prove that God created the earth and everything in it in 6 days, no one we know was there to see it[But we can look at the scientific evidence and disprove your myth]. Neither can we prove that a spark started life billions of years ago. No one was there either[A true acolyte of the frauds at AiG: “Were you there?” Nope, but there’s more to evidence than just eyewitness testimony…which is actually a miserably poor form of evidence]. And we certainly cannot replicate either in a lab[Actually, yes, we can replicate pieces of the chemistry in the lab. We can’t replicate magical beings poofing things into existence]. So, Ms. Dupuy, it all comes down to what we want to believe[I want to believe I’m a billionaire who can fly by flapping my arms. Is it true?]. I understand that if you do not believe that God created the world in six days[Because it is contradicted by the evidence] then you probably have a difficult time in believing the account of God’s amazing work in the lives of people then and now [Which is unsupported by any credible evidence]. My prayer is that God would touch your life in a mighty way so that you will know with certainty that God is real [What an evil wish: the one thing we learn from the Bible is that their imaginary deity is a vicious amoral thug. I wouldn’t wish it on anyone, not even John Nail].

Just to put the icing on the cake, John Nail actually is a teacher (kindergarten through 5th grade) and principal at St. Paul’s Lutheran School in Sedalia. I feel so much pity for the kids being sent to that undoubtedly awful school.

They can’t get away from faith, can they? Even when they’re trying to make a ‘scientific’ case against evolution and for creationism here comes the obligatory insistence that this is all about making the sort of choice you make when you decide which side you are on, which team you want to boost But scientific conclusions are not supposed to be grounded in any ‘faith’ commitment other than the secular version: be honest, be careful, be open to criticism, and try to follow where the evidence goes.

Where would I start with a guy like Nail? Hard to say. Personally, I’d get him to renounce faith upfront by forcing him to frame this issue in terms of science and science alone. Make it very, very hard for him to later trot out the old “well, it all comes down to what we want to believe” without recognizing that when he has done so, he has lost.

And to think these ignorant fools make up ~46% of the population, if you believe Gallup, and has been pretty consistent at least over the past 30 years. Its a wonder that any scientific and medical research occurs at all, and no wonder that we really haven’t done a thing about very pressing problems we know about like global warming. And to thing these guys constantly complain about the influence of secularism in society. Propagandizing almost half the population to lack curiosity about our origins and believe total nonsense not qualitatively different that childhood fairy tails or Santa Claus is no small feat.

And these arguments show up routinely in my science classes. About half my students went to a religious school (Catholic – and this one apparently doesn’t realize the pope is OK with evolution). The other half? They just know evolution isn’t true because their parents say it isn’t, their pastor says it isn’t, and their teachers in high school never dared talk about it at all. So I get: Were you there? Why are there no transitional fossils? and all the other nonsense the AIG spits out.

Where would I start with a guy like Nail? Hard to say. Personally, I’d get him to renounce faith upfront by forcing him to frame this issue in terms of science and science alone

A good idea, but I doubt he’d even agree to anything like that. Most likely, he’d start whining and equivocate between blind faith and evidence-based conclusions.

I’m reminded of that discussion I had with a creationist where, over the course of several back and forth posts, he refused to agree that god creating the universe from nothing and me “creating” a sandwich from existing ingredients were sufficiently different to merit using different words to refer to them.

That’s the most annoying thing about creationists. It’s not just that they disagree, misunderstand a particular point, are misinformed or start from different assumptions. It’s the way in which they undermine the very project of human understanding and communication. It’s the way that they make it impossible to even have a rational conversation with them.
They don’t just make bad arguments; they make non-arguments. They make statements that are so out there, it’s hard to even discuss them.

Does anyone else have a recurring fantasy wherein all the fundamentalist religious boobs on the planet are left on their own? It’s impossible, but what I wouldn’t give to be able to buy a large continent and allow all the atheist scientists, doctors, engineers, philosophers, students — well, all the atheists — to live in freedom from stupid. We’d set up our own government, have our own schools, have a socialized form of government (you know, kind of what we have now, only with some heart).

I’m getting just bitter enough and sick enough of these idjits that I would gladly sit back and watch them devolve into some sort of 12th Century dystopia. There would undoubtedly be some amazing theme-parks (snort!), and the only book their schools would need would be the Babble, so it’s just possible they could coast along for awhile.

What I can’t quite figure out is if the lack of medical care and technology would wipe them out or if the fact that they’d be breeding like minks (with no birth control or abortion) would offset that.

A good idea, but I doubt he’d even agree to anything like that. Most likely, he’d start whining and equivocate between blind faith and evidence-based conclusions.

In which case there is where the debate really is. I’ve informally argued with a lot of creationists without bothering to specifically bring up any evolutionary biology. The problems they have start much earlier. So cut to the chase.

If the creationist is confident enough they do sometimes agree to renounce faith at the beginning — but only if you don’t put it that way. If you do, then you’re right — they won’t agree. Focus instead on how you both want to go where the evidence leads and be objective and be willing to change your minds: it shouldn’t matter whether we want something to be true, right? Truth matters and is what it is whether we like it or not, yes? It’s not like there’s a “true for me” and a “true for you.” Get them nodding to this. They usually do. They think they hate postmodernism. They don’t realize right off that it’s just another anti-humanist disguise for Faith.

Does anyone else have a recurring fantasy wherein all the fundamentalist religious boobs on the planet are left on their own? It’s impossible, but what I wouldn’t give to be able to buy a large continent and allow all the atheist scientists, doctors, engineers, philosophers, students — well, all the atheists — to live in freedom from stupid.

Anyone else thinking of the Golgafrinchians? Where would we find a good telephone sanitizer when we need one?

That’s not actually a very good translation. I’ve seen “fearfully great lizard” suggested. Apparently deinos/-a/-on means something like “imposing”, “fear- and awe-inspiring”. …Not to be confused with dinos, “whorl”, as in “dinoflagellate”.

This creobot clearly needs a lesson in virology. Viruses: They don’t work like you think they work.

Also: Life isn’t magic. It’s a matter of definition, not a category that exists outside of our skulls.

I love how they distinguish between “micro” and “macro” evolution, but never quite seem to say where the line is.

I’ve seen it defined. It basically boils down to “micro” is anything that has been actually observed (viruses, bacteria, dog breeds); “macro” is anything that we have not directly seen, and therefore is the only thing that is important.

Methuseus – it gets worse. It appears I was, unknown to me, used in a lesson on atheism in comparative religions – by a teacher who seems to have not idea what atheism really is, used Bill Maher as an example of an atheist scholar, and seemed more interested in outing me to my students than anything else (I teach in a rural midwestern small town college). I don’t know this teacher, never heard of her, but it seems like she has a need to “out” me (since she got my picture from an atheist meet-up on the internet, I am, as you can tell, already out, but hey, why not call me out?)

I stand the hostile environment because I am in my 50s and would like to retire someday; and because, contrary to all the evidence, I’m still naive enough to hope I can make a difference. Since I teach environmental science in a deep red state, it’s more hostile than you could possibly realize. With Obama joining Ryan in gunning for Social Security and Medicare, I guess I’m stuck.

It’s impossible, but what I wouldn’t give to be able to buy a large continent and allow all the atheist scientists, doctors, engineers, philosophers, students — well, all the atheists — to live in freedom from stupid. We’d set up our own government, have our own schools, have a socialized form of government (you know, kind of what we have now, only with some heart).

Unfortunately there’s no guarantee that just because someone is an atheist they will automatically hold politcally progressive views. Even where religion plays just a small part in politics, like across Europe (from time to time, anyway) we still have to fight against the regressives and their ‘Me first! I’m alright, Jack’ ideology.

It also bears repeating that even if in the future the theory of evolution was refuted as well as the entire modern understanding of big bang cosmology (albeit there are many different versions), it would not add a single thing to the case for creationism. Biblical scholars have known for at least a century that the Bible is written by different sources and woven together by later editors which didn’t remove the inconsistencies and contradictions. For example, there are two creation accounts and at least two different versions woven together in the flood account. The two creation accounts flatly contradict one another so both can’t be true by definition. Even if the first 7 day account were taken seriously, there are interesting puzzles like how god can create light prior to light sources (sun, stars) that give out photons of light. The unchanging god apparently is able to continually change his mind without blinking an eye. For example, we are told that Cain shall not be avenged for the killing of his brother, and then a few chapters later that the death penalty is mandated for murder after the flood. By Aristotelian logic, contradictory accounts and commands cannot both be true. Like Asimov said, the best argument against the Bible is the Bible itself. If these creationists actually read the damn book, they would quickly see, as scholars have painstakingly documented, it is riddled with internal contradictions (not to mention miracles and grotesquely implausible events, another story) so by definition cannot be true in any world.

It basically boils down to “micro” is anything that has been actually observed (viruses, bacteria, dog breeds); “macro” is anything that we have not directly seen, and therefore is the only thing that is important.

Actually, it’s generally a bit worse. ‘Macroevolution’, as (ab)used by creationists, is usually a horribly inaccurate and flat out wrong strawman, like dogs turning into cats.

Does anyone else have a recurring fantasy wherein all the fundamentalist religious boobs on the planet are left on their own?

No, but I do have a recurring vision wherein all the fundamentalist religious boobs on the planet get into one final war over whose version of the invisible sky monster is right, and bring down civilization. Then, as the survivors are scrabbling about the ruins gnawing on dead rats, those religious boobs who caused it all are running around going “See? We were right!”

The name Dinosauria was published in 1842. The names Tyrannosaurus and Tyrannosaurus rex were only published in 1905. In the original publication, Dinosauria only included Megalosaurus, Iguanodon and Hylaeosaurus. (The author, Richard Owen, knew about Cetiosaurus but didn’t recognize it as a dinosaur.)

It could be said that the avian influenza genome is evolving only in the sense that it’s continually changing and modifying [Uh, yes? That’s evolution!], and not in the sense that it will someday be something other than an influenza virus

This argument needs to be called what it is: a semantic trick. It’s the equivalent of saying “I can still call the thing that virus evolved into a ‘virus'”, to which I respond: Yes, yes you can, but the question here isn’t what you can or can’t call the thing, but what it IS. And what it is is an evolved version of what it was, whether you use the same word to refer to them or not. I mean, I can choose to call a cat a “dog”, but that doesn’t make it the same thing as a dog (with apologies to Douglas).

I love how they distinguish between “micro” and “macro” evolution, but never quite seem to say where the line is.

Their position is evolving. The latest I’ve heard is that macroevolution is defined as any changes to the genome that increase its information content. Then they say that microevolution is always the decrease of information content (it’s a fallen world and all that). They have some cites about how some famous cases of microevolution involve the breaking of certain genetic functions. The analogy I heard them mention is that microevolution can’t add up to macroevolution, just like you can’t ever get to the top of a skyscraper by going down the stairs.

Anyway, that’s what they’re saying. I know enough information theory from when I had two college courses on it, to know why it’s bullshit.

Trying to argue with a Biblical literalist is like wrestling with a pig. The pig may enjoy it, but it leaves you tired and dirty, and doesn’t accomplish anything useful. Anyone who holds that a collection of Bronze Age myths is literally true lives in a world inconsistent with observed reality. Isn’t that the defining feature of schizophrenia? Any logical argument is dependent on the truth of its premises. If you encounter someone who insists on arguing from patently false premises, you’re left with the famous line from “Wargames”: The only way to win is not to play.

So I take it that teachers in that state don’t need any kind of formal licensing or any fucking education themselves to be put in charge of educating children. They just call themselves ‘Teacher” and they get the job as long as they don’t slobber excessively around the parents. It’s time for Federal regulations on teachers unless the government is willing to pay for my kids to be taught in a country where they don’t let slobbery chinned, knuckle-dragging fuckwits into positions of educational authority.

Private schools don’t have to require licensing or any sort of evidence their teachers know shit from shinola. Hence the big push to kill public education over the years via voucher and charter schools.

I fully support the right to teach the controversy. As an atheist, I’m more than willing to volunteer my time to go to religious/ Sunday schools, and tell kids about the lack of proof for God, and the bible’s numerous contradictions.

then you probably have a difficult time in believing the account of God’s amazing work in the lives of people then and now

Like what?

God’s chosen people the Jews, were overrun by the Assyrians, Babylonians, Persians, Greeks, and Romans. The latter kicked them out of Israel and they were discriminated and massacred for 2,000 years until the Germans killed half of them. The amazing work didn’t do a whole lot for his favorite people.

Or do you mean the witch hunts, heretic hunts, Reformation wars, the crater in New York City where the World Trade Center was, or the Boston marathon bombings. God’s amazing work frequently does nothing for people’s lives but end them in rivers of blood.

Although, lately god seems to be getting tired. His latest atrocity is simply not up to his old standards. Internet creationist trolls and driveby’s are merely mildly annoying.

“The only item she mentioned was when she wrote, “There’s plenty of self-evident evidence (see: the flu virus). …”. A virus is not even a living organism.”

I’m confused. The fellow claims that a virus is not a living organism, and then goes on to pontificate about virus genomes. So, rocks are not living organisms — can he tell us about their genetic makeup?

It is truly appalling that young people are subjected this time-suck, when they should be learning. Of course, he must have been subjected to the same sort of “education” that he is now dishing out, which appears to be poor, thin and mean-spirited.

Yesterday I was at a debate between Dan Barker and a creationist named Brian Young. Did you know that the 2nd law of thermodynamics doesn’t count for earth because the UNIVERSE is a closed system? Science is interpreted with a particular world view. Atheists are apparently using the wrong view. Gravity is not a theory it’s a law of nature and we all know who made those laws.

Used the popular tactic of throwing out arguments so fast you could barely keep up and of course said atheism is a religion. Wasn’t able to ask a question.

Oh wow — you mean that school is Missouri and not Massachusetts? Gee, what a surprise. There you go again P Zed, advocating eugenics (or the basis of eugneics), just like Mike Judge.You really have too much time on your hands for a “professor”. I guess that explains the gig in the sticks.

I applaud the school for teaching children the truth—and I’m sure they would be only too willing to unashamedly be named publicly. This father should be thrilled his daughter is being taught true historical science so she will understand the Bible’s history is true, that’s why the gospel based in that history is true.

Anyhow, as an encouragement to them to continue teaching the truth of God’s Word, I would like to give them some resources to help them continue to teach children the true history of the world. So if anyone can let me know the name of the school, please advise me on this post and I will have someone message you for the detailed information.

You can read what he father wrote at the snopes website. I guess snopes covered it as they thought it might be a hoax–I guess they couldn’t believe a school would actually teach biblical creation as true! Here is the link: http://www.snopes.com/photos/signs/sciencetest.asp